


Caramel M&Ms

by streetyeet



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Australia, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, also caramel m&ms are literal crack, also im aussie so like the whole being cold thing, and chan is chris in this cuz, artsy!chan, australia that means english names right idk, awkward boys, i love them, it doesn't say in the fic but newtown is a performing arts school, its completely accurate, lol okay im done, netball games in the middle of winter are pure icy torture, rugby player!Felix, so like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 17:26:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16045142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetyeet/pseuds/streetyeet
Summary: Felix is really tired. And he has rugby. And he really likes caramel m&ms.(or felix is a dumb bitch and spills m&ms onto chris who is just as awkward as felix)





	Caramel M&Ms

Felix was tired. The kind of tired where walking feels like manoeuvring limbs of iron and the thought of having to do anything feels like too much to bear. Not only was he balls deep in colour coded flashcards that made no sense and hastily scribbled notes that were created in a half-awake state of boredom, but his team had made it into the grand finals and their coach was not letting them off easy.  
After 10 laps of the oval and a quick calculation of how much money his parents would have wasted on school if he decided to run away and become a monk before his exams, the scrum drills began. All he wanted was to sleep (preferably for the next 3 months but you know, you can’t have everything). Instead here he was, fists full of polyester shorts, head squeezed between one guys armpit and another guys ass wondering why he ever signed up for rugby.  
Flashback to Felix in year seven, a scrawny boy with a face made for bullying and a physique that screamed ‘I’m asking you to shove my face down a toilet.’ It was obviously the perfect decision for him to join a sport that involved little other than wrestling for an inflated piece of rubber on a field of either muddy grass or dirt as hard as concrete for an hour and a half every week . Since then he had filled out a bit yes, but he was by far the shortest and skinniest guy on the team and hadn’t come far in the way of muscle mass since the end of his growth spurt in year 9.  
The whistle blew and Felix finally allowed himself to sit down on the ground while the low voice of his coach bellowed out across the field.  
“This Saturday for reffing, we’ve got Alex on under 12s, Noah on under 11s, James on under 10s and Felix on under 9s. I’ll see the rest of you at the game at 10. Have a good night boys.”  
And with that Felix’s day just got a little bit worse. It’s not that the under 9s were that bad, they weren’t (well, they were, but everyone had to start somewhere). It’s that their game starts at 7am, 3 hours before he would usually be playing and he wasn’t sure whether or not the monk idea was so bad at this point.  
After buying a packet of caramel m&ms from the nearby vending machine (because who needs crack when you have caramel m&ms) he waited at the bus stop, an uncomfortably cold breeze whipping at his very obviously bare legs. Surrounded by people in jumpers and jeans, Felix felt a pang of jealousy as he attempted to warm up his legs by rubbing his hands along his thighs.  
The bus arrived, vehicle filled to the brim with office workers impatiently wanting to get home. He’d made the mistake of opening his m&ms before getting on the bus, quickly realising that in order to stop them from spilling everywhere he would have to balance precariously between a short woman with her music turned up way too loud, and a (very attractive) boy with his binder grasped in one hand and the bus pole in another.  
The boy had soft, curly hair and a lock had fallen over his eyes, making him look a lot younger than he probably was. His headphones hung around his neck and he tapped a rhythm onto the bar above him, this unknown boy becoming more and more endearing by the minute.  
A sudden stop causes the bus to jolt forward, Felix’s hand instinctively shooting out to steady himself. Said hand happened to be holding an open packet of m&ms, and also happened to steady itself on the body of the boy directly in front of him, becoming the last nail in the coffin of his Bad DayTM and spilling a whole bag of chocolate onto his newfound crush.  
“Oh my God, I’m-I’m so sorry I-I’m sorry it just slipped I’m-”  
Felix blabbered out, his arms flailing as he crouched down to attempt to rectify his packet of m&ms.  
“Uh that’s okay.”  
The boy awkwardly crouched down to his height and tried to pick up some of the m&ms as well, their bodies contorted to fit onto the crowded bus while still refraining from being annoying to the general public.  
“You’re not gonna eat these are you?” The boy stood up again, emptying his handful of m&ms back into the bag.  
“Uh, no, probably not.” Felix let out a soft laugh and resumed his position of balancing (albeit more anxiously this time) between the two people. He stood in silence for another two minutes, feeling the boy’s eyes on his face.  
“I’m Chris.”  
“what.”  
“Chris, it’s my name.”  
“Oh well, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Felix.”  
They stood in silence again, only the sound of an engine and others talking filling the space between them. Felix reached for the stop button before shuffling past Chris to reach the front doors of the bus.  
After tapping off, he stepped out of the bus and sucked in a breath as the cold air contrasted against the stuffy space behind him. He set off down the highway towards his street and could feel a presence close behind him, and was annoyed yet unsurprised to find the boy from the bus – Chris – walking after him.  
“So, hi again.” Felix began stiltedly, his tiredness making an appearance again as even forming three words was a mammoth task. Just the thought of walking home made him feel like curling up in a ball and sleeping.  
“Yeah, hi.” Chris replied, the tension so thick that Felix might have gone red had he not been so thoroughly worn out that even his blood cells had had enough.  
“So, you go to Newtown?” Felix asked after an elongated pause in which he eyeballed the school crest on Chris’s shirt, willing his house to appear before them so that he could escape the clutches of socialisation.  
“Uh yeah, I do.” The words seemed to drag out of the other boy’s mouth, a tired undertone laced his words and Felix felt a little bit sorry for him. Clearly Chris was just as worn out as he was, the bags under his eyes contrasting against his cheeks and the empty red bull in place of a drink bottle in his school bag did not go unnoticed.  
“You got exams too?” If this didn’t get a conversation going, nothing would, Felix thought. There was nothing people like to do more than complain, and if he was going to have to subject himself to more bland conversations about school then so be it.  
“Yeah, my maths exam is tomorrow and I’m not prepared at all. My teacher is a dickwad who doesn’t know how to teach and I think that working at macca’s would’ve been a better life choice than this.”  
“Maths can’t give you oil burns or turn you off of chicken forever.”  
“Touché. What about you?”  
“Well, science is boring as fuck and I think taking biology was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.” The mention of science related suffering seemed to spark Chris’ interests, and they began a heated conversation about why science teachers are either insane or give zero shits about anything, as well as why maths was God’s indirect way of punishing students.  
“Well this is my street, so, I’ll see you later I guess, maybe.” Felix gave a hesitant wave to Chris as he walked down his street-lamp-lit street and thought over every aspect of their conversation. Did he say the right thing? Was his joke about the periodic table a little bit too nerdy? And more importantly, why didn’t he get his number?  
The chances of seeing Chris again weren’t minuscule, especially considering they got the same bus, but Felix still felt annoyed and disappointed at himself at not even mentioning the possibility of them becoming better friends.  
As he got into bed that night, there was a heaviness in his bones that made him feel more like a corpse than a person and he thought about Chris again, about his curl and the bags under his eyes that seemed to disappear when they got onto the subject of music, and the way he waved back at him with a smile on his face. Felix couldn’t get the boy out of his head, and fell asleep mourning an empty bag of m&ms and a non-existent phone number.

 

Saturday morning rolled around and Felix was regretting every moment in his life that had led to this point. Rugby? A pain in the ass. School? Satan’s spawn. The fact that waking up was a socially acceptable behaviour? Disgusting. He didn’t even want to look at his uniform let along accept the fact that yes, it was 6am and yes, he did have to get dressed and leave the house.  
Sitting in the car freezing his ass off with a half awake mother driving him to the oval, Felix thought about Chris again. Did he play a sport? What did he do on the weekend? Did he have a driver’s license? He was so caught up in his thoughts about a boy he’d met once that he didn’t even realise the car had stopped moving until his mum poked him in the side and told him to get a wriggle on. His savoured the slight warmth being emitted from the heater before exiting the car and shivering upon impact.  
The grass was wet with due beneath his feet and he cursed at the fact that the sun hadn’t even risen fully and here was, ball in hand, trekking across an oval to find the team of 9 year olds he would be having to referee. Eventually he reached the correct oval and sat down to pull on his boots and shin pads while the teams gathered on the grass.  
Throughout the game he could feel someone looking at him, but when he looked up to see who it was all the faces melded into a big cloud of shouting parents and his tired brain couldn’t tell one apart from the other. A timer went off on his phone in his pocket telling him to end the game, and he blew the whistle that signalled that the game had finished, along with his wavering attention span.  
Of course, with said freedom comes other consequences, such as a very cute boy who you happen to have spilt m&ms on and ranted to about maths and who also happens to have a little brother on the team you’re refereeing coming up to you at the end of the game.  
“Hey, uh again.” Chris started. Felix noticed that he never left a sentence without slipping ‘uh’ into the mix somewhere, a habit he found equal parts annoying and adorable. “So, last night, I never got your number, so I was wondering if you’d like to, y’know, like, do that, I guess.” Felix took a few moments to process the question, his brain still waking up and defrosting simultaneously.  
“Uh, um yeah sure, I was, like not really but, I was gonna ask you the same thing, but then I didn’t, but you did so it’s fine…” He rambled on, cold fingers struggling to type in the phone number he had memorised years ago. He handed back the phone to Chris and gave him a smile, the sun slightly peeking out from behind the trees, providing minimal warmth against the frosty air. He rubbed his hands together out of habit, not knowing what to say to the boy looking at him expectantly.  
“Here, you look cold, let me help.” Chris said, tentatively reaching out and wrapping his significantly warmer hands around Felix’s somewhat frozen ones, a giggly feeling spreading throughout the colder boy almost instantaneously.  
“Uh, thanks, um, thanks a lot.” A blush spread out across both boys’ cheeks simultaneously and they began to laugh quietly, their clouds of breath forming and joining together before dissipating.  
“So, Felix, can I watch your game?”  
At that point, Felix didn’t care about the fact that he might be tackled to the ground in front of the cute-new-crush-who-also-maybe-probably-has-a-crush-on-him-too, or that it was still so cold he could feel his toes going numb, or that he didn’t have breakfast and his stomach was crying out in protest, because there was a boy standing in front of him holding his hands who wanted to stay in the cold to watch him play rugby, and that made the spilt m&ms so worth it. 

(Chris bought him a packet after the game anyway, and they shared it on the bus home between shy first kisses and stress-induced rants over messy science notes)


End file.
